


happenstance

by ggwynbleidd



Category: A Way Out (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Multi, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-02 21:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14553426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ggwynbleidd/pseuds/ggwynbleidd
Summary: Two children, two backgrounds. One place, one life.





	1. 1937

The baby wasn’t even a year old and Mary knew that Bobby hated it. It. That’s all he ever called him. It’s crying, it’s making noise, go stop it, make it shut the fuck up. Bobby had promised so much before the baby was born. He would stop drinking, stop whoring around, they’d get married, all these different things. None of that happened and everything just got worse. She had tried to give him more chances. Having a new baby was stressful and she had dealt with enough brothers and sisters to take care of babies well enough. Mary had thought that babies were easy and found soon after that they weren’t. There was always somebody she could hand a little brother or sister to if she couldn’t get them to quiet down, eat or sleep. She had nobody to help her with that and after three months she realized she was horribly, terribly alone in this. He never hit her, that’s something she was thankful for, but she wanted her old Bobby back. Just for one day. But he never, ever was the same and as the baby got older it just got worse.

One night, Bobby went out to drink with his friends and didn’t come home for three days. Mary called around and felt uneasy with how mum everyone was being about it. Nobody could, or would, tell her where he had gone. She finally gathered her pride and her baby and went to the house of Bobby’s friend Joe. The only one she knew the address of. It was cold and raining when she arrived, hunched under the stoop of the house, with a wriggling and fussy baby in her arms. Joe’s wife Gianna answered the door after two rings of the doorbell. She was a nice woman from the old country and Mary was able to fumble her way through half-remembered Italian that she heard her nonna speak and make her way inside. Leo let out a long, high cry of exhaustion as Mary sat down on the sofa. She tried to soothe him as he fussed as Gianna went to get Joe from the garage. He came into the living room with a face as overcast as the sky outside. Mary felt her stomach sink before he even spoke and she pulled Leo closer to her chest.

Bobby was gone. He had packed a bag with clothes he had bought with money he stole or hid from Mary. Joe had tried to talk him out of it, to try and be a good dad, and he had been paid no mind. He just...left. Took a car with some other friend of his that Mary had never heard of before. Like it was a daring escape in the night. Mary felt Gianna’s small hand on her shoulder as she bit her lip to hold back tears. Rage welled up in the back of her throat, cursing Bobby in her head all the while. That bastard. That fucking bastard had taken her from everything and everyone, always saying he’d be a good husband, a good dad. He took her from home and family in New York to drag her to the other side of the country. And then...left her. Just left her. And now she had this baby in her arms that was crying and yelling at the top of its lungs.


	2. 1941

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Mary Caruso decides she doesn't want to be a mother anymore, she starts a series of events with far, far reaching consequences.

It was a hot summer day when Leo knocked on the door across the hall. His clothes were dirty, he was hungry and he had been by himself for some time now. He wasn’t really sure how long, though, but he did know that he had run out of any food he could find. When the door opened he was taken in faster than he could think, given the first real meal he had eaten in days and given a bath with fresh clothes that were a bit too big for him. Everyone was so nice to him. The mother, Mrs. Lopez, sat on the sofa with him after his bath. She talked to him in a soft voice and brushed out the snarls and tangles in his hair with a gentle hand. She wanted to know where his mama had gone and to be honest Leo did as well. He just knew that she was gone longer than she usually was. Mrs. Lopez looked at her husband with sad, hopeless eyes and that was when Leo realized that maybe something was more wrong than he originally thought.

They let him sleep on the sofa for the night under a nice, soft blanket that was comfortable in the warm night. They put on a record for him for him to fall asleep to as they talked in hushed tones at the kitchen table. Mr. Lopez took Leo to the police station in the morning. It was hard to sit there and be patient while the adults talked, itching in his new shirt, picking at the skin around his fingernails as he tried to behave himself. He spent most of the day eavesdropping on serious sounding phone calls and conversations that he knew he shouldn’t have heard. Leo was taken later that day to a police car. The policeman that drove hi was tall and had a nice smile with straight, white teeth. He talked with Leo about small things during the drive, if he liked comics, his favorite candy. Leo liked the talk even if he didn’t have much to say. He was driven to a large, old house with a tall stone fence and an old iron fence that squeaked when it opened. The policeman kept a strong grip on Leo’s hand as they walked down the sidewalk to the door. The walkway was lined with sweet smelling flowers.

Leo had to sit and wait more as the policeman talked with a sweet looking old lady. She looked like somebody’s grandma. Not Leo’s, but somebody’s, and he liked her. She had a nice dress and smelled like pressed flowers when she walked up to him. She smoothed back his hair with a sad look on her face and clicked her tongue before fretting about a haircut. He liked having his hair pet all the same. His mama always did that to make him feel better when he was sick or when he had a nightmare. The old lady let him look around the house for a bit and she talked about some of the rules. Play nice, be nice, don’t spit, don’t swear, wash your hands and behind your ears, say a prayer at dinner. It was a nice place. He was taken to a room with two long lines of beds that were close together and was told that’s where he was going to be staying. Leo looked up at her and asked when his mama was coming to get him. The old lady said that his mama wasn’t coming at all. She left him. How long was he staying? She said she didn’t know.

Suddenly everything felt less nice. Leo shook his head and started to cry. He was going to find his mama, she didn’t leave him on purpose. She wouldn’t be that mean. Leo burst down the hallway and was caught by another woman who held onto him tightly as he kicked and screamed and cried. This wasn’t happening. He was spanked and sent to bed without supper. His new bed was the farthest away from the door but it was at least near a window. Leo sat on his bed feeling for himself and trying to stop his tears. It didn’t work and he found himself just crying more loudly. He buried his face in his hands to hide himself and felt his stomach lurched when he heard the door open. Multiple footsteps echoed in the room now as other boys started to get ready for bed. He looked up just in time to watch an older boy sit down near him on his own bed.

“Why are you crying?” the strange boy asked flatly.

“Shut up, Hank, that’s that new kid that cop brought in,” another boy said as he got ready for bed. “He’s had enough of today.”

“You shut up. Why are you crying?” the boy, Hank presumably, repeated.

“Why am I here?” Leo finally asked as he rubbed his face free of tears. Hank was staring down at him and shrugged his shoulders. “I wanna go home.”

“I dunno,” was all Hank said before he lay down on his own bed. “I guess your parents didn’t do their job. Go to sleep.”

Leo wiped his eyes and settled under the thin blanket he was given. He stared at the ceiling until the lights were suddenly cut off with a bark of “Lights out!” and then it was dark. He wasn’t scared of the dark. He was a big boy. He could handle himself.


	3. 1945

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a shame what happens when one person makes a bad decision.

It made the news across a few counties. A big, ugly wreck on the road. Curled and crushed and crinkled metal and shattered glass twinkling on the black of the road like diamonds. James and Helen Montgomery had died on the way home from a dinner party. Their friends were hosting it to celebrate a new promotion. Frank Deangelo had about five too many before getting behind the wheel of his car to come home from the bar. He hit them head on. James died on impact, Helen on route to the hospital, Frank seven months later by his own hand. All while James and Helen’s daughter slept peacefully in her bed at home with a babysitter downstairs biting her nails in worry as the clock ticked on.

Linda woke up to her aunt Florence in the kitchen with a pale face that made her look five years older. The news was broken to her gently but she didn’t take it well. No little girl would, to wake up to the news that the world she just had last night was ripped away from her. That the kisses goodbye that her parents showed on her face, telling her that they would be there when she woke up in the morning, were the last she would ever receive. Linda had thrown herself onto the floor with piercing, shrill screams of grief that ripped her throat and hurt her chest. Nothing her aunt said or did could help her. She felt lost already, like she was in the ocean, dark water filling her lungs and enveloping her. Like the time she went to the beach and her dad had to pull her out of the water.

The funeral was lovely, it really was, everyone talked about how beautiful it was. It had nice flowers and a nice priest and people lined up to sit in nice chairs. The weather was sunny but with a soft breeze that carried the smell of the flowers that were lined up for James and Helen. The air smelled inappropriately sweet. Linda didn’t pay much attention to what was being said, staring down at her hands folded in her lap, seething in anger at everything. The sun was too bright. The priest was too loud. The dress Aunt Florence had forced her to wear was too itchy. Her mother never would have made her wear a dress like this, even for a funeral. It was too hot. So she just sat there trying not to cry as she stared down at her hands folded in her lap. Trying to be strong, to be tough, and it was working.

The house was packed up not too soon after that. Most of the items would go to Linda at some point, but Aunt Florence was taking them to her house to look after them. The same way that Linda would be. Everything was going to Aunt Florence’s house since she lived alone, no husband or children, and talked about it as if it was going to be the best thing in the world. Like a summer vacation. Until Linda finally yelled in frustration, at first wordless before she found the words (less than kind) she found fitting, and stormed off to her room. She wasn’t going to have a “new life” because this was her life. Always and forever and nothing was going to change. No matter what her aunt said. She cried and screamed into her pillow and kicked her feet against her mattress. Florence knocked on the door with anger and started to scold her through the door for behaving so rottenly. Linda ignored her as she buried her face against the warm, wet spot on her pillow her tears had formed.

**Author's Note:**

> this is underwhelming, at least right now, mainly because i'm wanting to do this by years of important stuff that happens to the two of them. it starts when they're both kids and when they're friendly but it'll get romantic and junk later on as they grow up, so that's why it's tagged with that already. hope you enjoy!


End file.
